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Evidence Detected of Lake Beneath the Surface of Mars (cnn.com)
For decades Mars has teased scientists with whispers of water's presence. Now they have some solid evidence. From a report: The Italian Space Agency announced Wednesday that researchers have detected signs of a large, stable body of liquid water locked away beneath a mile of ice near Mars' south pole. The observations were recorded by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding instrument -- Marsis for short. "Marsis was born to make this kind of discovery, and now it has," says Roberto Orosei, a radioastronomer at the National Institute for Astrophysics, who led the investigation. His team's findings, which appear in this week's issue of Science, raise tantalizing questions about the planet's geology -- and its potential for harboring life. CNN elaborates: Between May 2012 and December 2015, MARSIS was used to survey the Planum Australe region, which is in the southern ice cap of Mars. It sent radar pulses through the surface and polar ice caps and measured how the radio waves reflected back to Mars Express. Those pulses reflected 29 sets of radar samples that created a map of drastic change in signal almost a mile below the surface. It stretched about 12.5 miles across and looked very similar to lakes that are found beneath Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets on Earth. The radar reflected the feature's brightness, signaling that it's water. "We interpret this feature as a stable body of liquid water on Mars," the authors wrote in the study.
This one about Mars having water, another one telling roughly the same about the moon. It's a draw. Not sure now if I'd prefer to go to the moon or mars!
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
>> Evidence Detected of Lake Beneath the Surface of Mars (cnn.com)
The sound of Jetskis was unmistakable and annoying, even from several million miles away.
There is water - means that probably there were rivers, and consequently gold. We may witness thousands of rockets departing to Mars daily.
The original paper in Science: http://science.sciencemag.org/...
Space.com: https://www.space.com/41272-ma...
Science News: https://www.sciencenews.org/ar...
CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/25...
Quaid... Start the reactor...
There was a scientist that said "There is certainly life on Mars. We put it there."
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
According to the article, the Italian space agency's Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding instrument works by transmitting pulses of low-frequency electromagnetic waves. Some of those waves interact with features at and below the Martian surface and reflect back toward the instrument, carrying clues about the planet's geological composition, but it doesn't seem to have any spectrometer component.
So, and this is an honest (and not sarcastic) question, how could you possibly know what the liquid a mile below the surface is?
We have known for some time that Antarctica's subsurface lakes are rich ecosystems. This is the first plausible location to look for life on Mars that we have discovered (as opposed to merely hypothesized).
Ice is also relatively easy to drill through, or even penetrated with an ice subterrene.
It will be a much larger operation of course than any lander mission to date, by far.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
> Mars has teased scientists with whispers of water's presence.
This is humorously bad anthropomorphizing. Mars is "teasing" and "whispering" to scientists about how wet it is?
They planned on using it to study Martian ice caps, so they wanted to call it ICE/IS. Apparently there was a problem with that name so they called it MARSIS.
Yes, it's a bad joke. I even tried not to post it, but I wouldn't let myself. I just think MARSIS is a dumb name.
a large, stable body of liquid water locked away beneath a mile of ice near Mars' south pole
So some Martian accidentally pulled the plug out and all the water drained away.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
"I can't absolutely prove it's water, but I sure can't think of anything else that looks like this thing does other than liquid water," says Richard Zurek, chief scientist for the Mars Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who was unaffiliated with the study.
Any organisms on humans are not likely to be able to compete in Mars against species that evolved in that environment. If you stick gut bacteria in a hydrothermal vent it won't outcompete it. Terran bacteria will only overrun martian bacteria if none are still alive.
Eek. Your general assumption, that an invasive species will automatically be less suited to compete in an environment against native species is flat out wrong.
You then back it up with a very strictly limited scenario where it is not.
I wouldn't underestimate the ability of Earth organisms, living in a hyper-competitive environment, to be able to completely dominate a small and constrained ecosystem if one exists.
Earth organisms would be rats on their island.
We're whalers on the Mars, we carry a harpoon. But there ain't no whales so we tell tall tales and sing a whaling tune"